man, and somebody’s just pissed off. Go live with your mama for a while, bitch- I ain’t even talkin’ to you. In a nut shell, that’s it. I mean, a bad marriage doesn’t happen overnight. You started gettin’ up wrong six months ago.
So you are still in touch with Dickey? Oh God yeah. I play golf with him all the time.
I am a real fan of Dickey’s. I love the guy. Oh yeah. me too. Let me tell you, all of this shatters my heart.
What would you say is one of the most memorable shows you ever did? Oh, man. There’s a whole bunch of gigs that was just great. Of course, the Fillmore gigs were unreal. Watkins Glenn was unreal. But the gigs in Piedmont Park that were free- any free gigs- were just a ball. I mean, anytime you set up in the park and play for nothing, that’s a gas, man. Now you have to buy $200 million worth of in- surance to do that, so you’re not playing a free gig anymore. We had some good gigs with Charlie Daniels too. I could probably write an- other book just on gigs alone.
I enjoyed the part of the book where you were letting fans sneak in the back door at the gigs. Do you have a real cama- raderie with the fans? Oh, I love the people. if the people don’t come, you ain’t got nothin.’ I feel like this. if I go to a baseball game, I want to get my money’s worth. I’m paying enough money for the ticket, so every- thing ought to be for the audience. But I also like the old days when we used to do free gigs. I used to love that. There was nothing like playing in the park. You were giving something back. it wasn’t like giving to a charity so some guy can ride around in a freaking limousine, ya know? You’re actually giving something back to the people. But those days are gone too, I’m afraid.
We all loved Duane Allman. You knew him as well as anybody. Could you give us your take on your friend Duane?
He was my hero. I mean. I would have followed Duane to the end of the earth. I was older than him, but I respected him enough and loved him enough to do it. Duane had a sixth sense- or a seventh sense, man. He just knew what to do at the right time. There’s a fork in the road, right? if you go to the left, there’s a pot of gold. If you go to the right, you’re in a pile of crap. Duane could walk right up to the fork without thinking and say ‘let’s go to the left.’ And he’d come out smelling like a rose. But he was fair. he was honest. He was up front and didn’t beat around the bush. You did- n’t have to hear (drags voice) “Well, you know. . . I was thinkin’. . . It ain’t re- ally nice for me to say it, but. . . ” You didn’t have to hear it. He’d just say, “Red Dog, you messed up bad man. We’re gonna have to let you go.” There wouldn’t be no beatin’ around the bush. I try to live like that myself. I just don’t have the tactfulness or the position in life to deal the other way. So I just hit it, bam-bam- bam. (Laughs) I don’t really think you can put it into words, on Duane. He used to say, “You guys do all the work. We just come over and have fun.” That’s really what it’s all about. If these musicians say “I’m out here working my butt off, something’s wrong.” I mean, if he ain’t out there playing and having fun, something’s wrong. It’s at the stage of the game now where it’s not work. It’s “Hey, let’s enjoy ourselves and play.” The roadie’s the guy who’s doing the work to get the thing going. Tell me a little about the Fillmore audito- rium and Bill Graham. The Fillmore East was unreal, man. Bill Gra- ham had that thing man- it was the place to play. You’d go in there and set your stuff up on dollies. Nowadays we leave a lot of things in the case trays and all like that. But at the Fillmore they had these dollies. And after you played there one time, they knew what your gear looked like. When you’d come back, them dol- lies were even better, to go with your gear. They put everything on them 4-wheeled dollies, and rather than having to carry everything out on- stage, they just rolled it out there. So when it came time to change the stage it was bang- bang-bang and out of there. Next band. the Fill-
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